jumpinfarmer

Hey Tom what do you think about this? Personally I think it sounds like it could cripple skydiving as we now know it. Maybe USPA can find a way to get an exemption for skydiving flights.

Must be neither of you were on Otter 1 on Sunday. We were hosed right from the start all but one guy landed off but, hey what would CF be without an off landing. Also did you guys seem to notice the green light comming on way to soon. Seemed like almost all the loads I was on were a little short, maybe it was just me. Shouldn't complain SDAZ's piolots do a great job and I had a blast. can't wait untill next year.

Just remember only 360 days untill the next Couch Freaks. See you then!!!!

Shaun, you must not have been stopped by the guy who got me Sunday afternoon. It's probably the best story I've ever had to tell. After leaving Couch Freaks I was about 100 miles away and on a two lane when I got stopped for 66 in what they call a 55. Hell all I had seen in an hour was corn and beans. He asked what I was doing so far from home, NY plates in Hampton IA. Told him I had been in Ft Dodge skydiving and was going back to some friends in Northern IA. That's when the fun started, the trooper said he had a friend there jumping. He then proceeded to tell me all about going with his buddies BASE jumping when he was in the army, he never jumped but was the get away driver No shit, I couldn't make this up. After 45 minutes talking to him he let me off with a warning to slow down and get a current insurance card since mine was a year old. Sorry about you getting a dick for a cop man.

How wet did Ft Dodge get over the last few days? Wondering if I'm going to need pontoons for my tent.

Bet they'd ride great when there packed full of ice

Quote in lester brown's "plan B 2.0" he has several charts that show how a barrel of oil used to equal... i think it was 1 bushel of wheat... in price. and how over several decades the price of oil has risen dramatically while the wheat hasn't. ok i just found it. it starts in 1950 with the bushel of wheat at 1.89$ and barrel of oil at 1.71$. it finishes in 2005 with the bushel of wheat at 3.90$ and barrel of oil at 52.00$ (and we know that it is now in the 70-75$ range). ________________________________________________ Now try living off that $3.90 bushel of wheat, actually about $6.50 right now but still not anywhere the same increase as everything else. This is why agriculture has become so specialised and farms so large in the past 20 years. " the u.s., both the largest importer of oil and the largest exporter of grain, is paying dearly for this shift in the wheat-oil exchange rate. the 13 fold shift since 1973 is contributing to the largest u.s. trade deficit in history and a record external debt." ________________________________________________ Agriculture used to balence out our trade deficite but today only has a small positive ballance. so it appears to me that this is the real motivation behing the ethanol boom. especially considering that it seems to take more fossil fuel energy to produce than the energy that it gives us. _________________________________________________ Ethanol does provide about a 60% net gain of energy for what it takes to produce.

Your right with the cheap energy/cheap food idea, and how that is starting to change. In the last year almost everything we have to sell off our farm has doubled in price

Bill I don't want to rain on your parade but wheat doesn't come from Iowa, at least not very much of it. Also with the imigration situation manual labor is hard to come by for any kind of produce farm, or any one that needs labor. sadly Americans don't want to work anymore. Back to wheat for an example. About half of the US production is exported, the rest is used here. Most is raised on the plains and Pacific Northwest with the rest spread around the country. The places where wheat is the major crop aren't really suited for producing other crops without significant irigation. It's to hot and dry to grow truck crops and there is no market for them anyway. Neer the population centers wheat is also raised but more for a rotation crop then a major crop. There simply isn't enough land to grow all the wheat we use in areas neer the population centers. Then add in the differant classes of wheat. Humid ares like here in NY are best suited for soft wheats used for pastery flour and cerial, not breads or pasta. We have seveal flour mills within 75 miles of our farm and they use the wheat we grow here and also need some from other places in order to blend and make the type of flour needed for there customers. There are reasons why agriculture has developed the way it has. It isn't as simple as just having small sustainable comunities. We aren't the most efficiant agricultural producer in the world for no reason. I'd love to have you come out here for a couple weeks and see how we operate day to day. I think it would be a real eye opener(and not in a bad way) for yourself or anyone who has never been around farming.

One also needs to remember that the carbon produced growing food has been captured from the air instead of being reliesed from fossile fuels. As for buying local food, I'm all for it. However most people don't live neer farms anymore, the mid-west is a great example. In central IL or IA you could grow all the produce you wanted as a farmer but would starve since there isn't anyone around to buy your products. Myself, I raise a little produce mostly for our oun use. I used to sell produce at a stand in front of my house but not anymore. I wasn't making any money since every neighbor started doing the same thing and it took too much of my time away from the rest of our farm. Much of the grain and hay we raise does stay close to home however for what that may meen. Also I read that burning wood is more friendly than hauling it away. I have said that for years, take when a house is raised, it needs to be crunched up and loaded in trucks. Then hauled to a landfill where it is dumped and pushed around and packed in, later producing methane as the landfill decomposis. Just setting it on fire in a controled manner is much more eficent in my opinion.

I was nervouse as well but, after doing it I was on top of the world. Since then I've done around a dozen or more, some on purpose, some because of weather. You really need to be able to jump lower than full alt. for many reasons so go out and do it.

I hear ya.

I accidentally touched an electric fence around a horse pen. ZAP!!! FUCK!!! I can't imagine pissing on an electric fence is gonna work? What if you stand back enough that the piss stream breaks up into drops by the time it hits the fence? You try it first and I'll watch

I want to go ice diving. Also get a motorcycle and learn to ride well enough to take it to a track day.

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You comming out Kai or what? I'll be there for sure.

I skydive Seriously everything seems to go better durring the week after I am able to get away and make a few jumps on the weekend.

0-1-0 One jump late today after spending time doing RW with some folks I hadn't seen in a while.

Haven't seen anything about it posted yet so here is what I know. July 4th to the 8th at Batavia Airport Genesee County just off the NY state Thruway. Cassa, hot air baloon, night jumps and camping. Hope to see you there.

There are a lot of UB students and former students who jump at Frontier. Not sure but would guess it's about a half hour drive from campus to the DZ.

Well said. I'm not real big on the idea of Mexicans doing work that Americans could but since most Americans have become too lazy to do many jobs that are necessary we have little choice but to let them in.

Rain is always a pain in the ass Your either wishing for it or want it to quit, there never seems to be an inbetween. Two months ago I wanted the rain to quit so we could get the crops in the ground. Now we need rain bad but, I know when it starts it probably won't ever stop

Yep, that's a killdeer. I see there nests all the time in the fields in the spring and normally try to go around them when I can. They are pretty good mothers and if she is watching when you move her eggs she will still sit on them unlike many other typs of birds.

I don't make a habit of talking about it but if the subject comes up I will. Last week I had to pick up a load of fertilizer from the co-op and when I got there and looked on the bord for which hopper mine was in, instead of my name there was a just a drawing of a guy under canopy. They even got it right and didn't draw a round parachute I was impressed.

Really makes you think. I almost cried watching it, thanks for what you do.